Next generation of VMware Virtual Infrastructure named VMware vSphere

Today at the Minneapolis VMware User Group (VMUG) meeting, VMware employees disclosed to a group of 150+ attendees the new name for the next generation of Virtual Infrastructure many have been referring to as VI4 or VI.next. The new name is VMware vSphere.

I value and respect the various relationships I have with VMware and thus before posting this news, I checked with authoritative sources inside VMware. VMware Marketing has endorsed the release of this information to the public.

VMware also released a few new configuration maximum details on vSphere but for now I am keeping that information to myself. Other audience members in attendance may decide to break this news.

VMWare has great products, but the frequently changing names are just confusing. Trying to find documentation on their site is hell, because you don’t know which variation on the name you should be looking for. “vSphere” is not a name that tells us anything about what the product does. Neither is ESX, for that matter, though the i in ESXi does at least mean something. VMWare should fire the marketing team that came up with these increasingly obscure product names.

You can actually thank the entire VMware staff for coming up with vSphere. A list of names was provided to all employees to vote on…..and the winner is; vSphere.

When you get it all laid out, it somewhat makes sense. ESX is still the bare-metal hypervisor (ESXi is the JeOS version), vCenter is the management system and when bundled together you have vSphere (previously VI3). Just think of vSphere as VI4